Inside The Bulge, Part II: Superman's Package Will Be Safe For Kids

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Pity Brandon Routh, the actor plucked from obscurity, liberally greased up, and squeezed into Superman's blue tights by director Bryan Singer. Warner Bros. is spending untold millions on the Superman comeback movie, Routh's Big Break, and all anyone can talk about is how painstakingly the costume department calibrated the Man of Steel's package:

"Poor Brandon," says Parker Posey, who plays Luthor's girlfriend Kitty Koslowski. "He's got everyone touching him all the time. He's lying on his stomach and he's got five people coming up and pulling his underwear down, sticking their hands up the butt of his suit. I can't imagine what it's like." [...]

There was lots of early Internet buzz about the suit's being too dark, or the "S" 's being too small, but the biggest issue for the studio, according to costume designer Louise Mingenbach, was about Superman's trunks. Or, more specifically, what's in them. "There was more discussion about Superman's 'package' than anything else on the suit," she says, laughing. "Was it too big? Was it not big enough? Was it too pointy? Too round? It was somebody's job for about a month just working on codpiece shapes. It was crazy." And the final verdict? "Not big," she says, and laughs again. "Ten-year-olds will be seeing this movie."

It's nice to know that Superman's schlong will be kid-safe. Had it been deemed "too pointy," toy safety groups might have required sales-killing warning stickers affixed to a wide variety of merchandise, trying to make sure that children between the ages of 4-8 don't put out their eyes with their hero's potentially hazardous junk.